Big Drama Queen

Big Drama Queen is a fitting name for her.  She has a fear of tile floors, inside concrete floors, the crate and steps.  I wish they had named her Fearless Fosdick!  I am sure she will be fine in a few days, but it is a chore doing all of this on your own.  I have tile in a lot of my house, including the area going down to the basement to the backyard where the fence is located, and in front of the front door, so no matter how I take her out, she has to cross it.  She freezes up on the concrete in the basement too, and I literally have to bend down and place one foot in front of the other to get her across the 12-14′ to the steps and then up the steps.  I put runners down, but she is still afraid.  The steps are carpeted, so that helps a LITTLE.  Sister, Lilly is being patient as am I with the newbee.

Finding the pool is safer than hard floors!

My little girl that isn’t interested in the furniture, but she sure wants to keep an eye on me at all time.  Right now, she is watching me from the first floor and whining.  I can’t get her to come any further than the landing  where the staircase turns, but then she doesn’t like it because she can’t see me.  She is progressing slowly.  I have ordered an assist vest for her before I try taking her down the basement steps.  She is still a little spooked when we go into the garage because there again, we have the concrete inside a building thing, that in her doggie logic equates to “slippery tile”.  But she is a sweetie.  Of course, saying that, she just “checked” on Dalby, who came flying up the steps.

7-28-2010 UPDATE:

I got Drama’s assist vest in the mail on Monday, but decided
to wait a couple more days until she was really doing well
going down the steps into the garage before I tired the much
longer steps to the basement.  I worked yesterday all day, so
didn’t have the time to work on it then, but this morning after
breakfast and reading the paper, I put her vest on, spent about
20 minutes loving her and talking to her real soft, and then opened
the basement door.  No, she did not go running down – she freaked
out when she saw the door opened.  I finally got her to the edge of
the steps and again worked about 1/2 hour.  Still she wouldn’t go
down, in fact, she “zones out” when she gets scared.  She turns her
head and just stares.  I kept pulling her face around towards mine
and looking her in the eyes and I could feel her relaxing a bit.  She
still would hold her head up and not look down toward the steps, so
I got her back from the steps and had Lilly come out and go down
them – this isn’t the first time she has seen Lilly do it, but it seemed
to be the first that she paid attention to HOW she did it.  I got her
to the edge of the steps again, and she carefully put one foot down on
the step and then slowly went down.  I just kept enough pressure on
the assist vest that she would feel secure.  Just to make sure it wasn’t
a fluke, we did it again for their noon break.

I really needed her to get
going on this because tomorrow, my rambunctious grandpuppy comes to
stay for the weekend, and he has no manners.  Starts down the steps and
then turns around to see if anyone is following him and stand crosswise
on the steps.  He will be penned up in the utility room until the greys are
safely downstairs.  Anyway, I had to share the GREYT news!!